


Eastward

by TwistedNym



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Boats and Ships, F/F, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26795338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedNym/pseuds/TwistedNym
Summary: "Eastward, the first step in a long journey. It feels like a test to Arya Stark, to see if her curiosity and promises, her goodbyes and farewells will last.  Eastward bound far away from the remains of Winterfell, far away from the remains of memories."In which Arya Stark has a Stargazer Contest with a member of her crew on the way to Pentos and receives a surprising gift.
Relationships: Arya Stark/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Eastward

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lisa_london](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisa_london/gifts).



> (Is this self-indulgent and also a gift for a really dear friend? Heck yeah. It is also my first time writing for asoiaf/got so pls be easy on my soul. I DON'T KNOW IF I EVEN DO ARYA RIGHT HAAHAHA ----Half book canon half show canon ahead!----)

**_T_** he days on the ship between Westeros and Pentos are filled with salt and sun.

Leaving King's Landing behind seems hopeful at first with the sun in the sky and the wind in their favor. Blackwater Bay lies still around them, tame, and the ship is far from the only one leaving King's Landing behind.

The narrow sea is merciful to the crew on the cog. As they pass forward, they cross the ridges of a sharp cliff.

Eastward, the first step in a long journey. It feels like a test to Arya Stark, to see if her curiosity and promises, her goodbyes and farewells will last.

Eastward bound far away from the remains of Winterfell, far away from the remains of memories.

Eastward toward Pentos, a city she has never been to.

Her memories spray in the gist of a fume, along the shouts of a crew recruited half of westerosi men that hail from the stepstones to Dorne, and free men from the free cities. All a colorful and foreign bunch that shares nothing but their songs and sprawling commands in the common tongue under the banner of a grey direwolf.

The days are easy for what they are. The crew may be a colorful bunch. But they know what they do. The navigator sets the course , the sailors shuffle over the deck. In the sun, they melt away in coats, and most of them roll up their sleeves and show darker skin tanned by the sun and littered with scars and moles.

She is no lady, but she also is not the Captain. A Captain commands the sea in knowledge to deeds and dares. Arya Stark is just that. Herself. At least that is what she keeps thinking as she stares at the growling face of the wolf above her head.

A girl had many names. Then she had none. It seems strange to have it back and still leave the known world behind. A part of her wolfheart howls as King's Landing, Jon, and the whole of the seven kingdoms disappear in the distance. The other part smells the excitement and wants to prowl at the edges of the unknown.  
  
The days are filled with work, the nights are something else. As most of the crew finds themselves below deck, Arya Stark finds herself on the helm of the deck.

The nights are a story about sea monsters on their own, a silent, dark towering flood. The night makes her sharp in ways that the days do not. The nights have whispers and secrets, even here, in the middle of her crew, even in the middle of the water.

The darkness always reminds a part of her about the blind days. Her hands are not the ones of beggars anymore, they don't hold a bowl or reach up to grab her stick. Her feet do not sway in stumbling steps, they stand safe. She is a dancer on the water, with a blade and without it. She bends with the waves that carry the ship forward.

On top of the crow's nest, the barrelman stands vigil. Arya swings herself up the rigging in fast movements, arms flexing and feet finding a hold in single interstices.

She climbs over the side of the mast, breaths warm as the blood in her veins. The flimsy night air cools the sweat off her neck.

Everything is small except the sky that melts into the ocean. As before, the ship sways gently with the masts and wooden boards aching and moaning. The gentle breeze is soft and almost unrecognizable tonight. Up here, everything is silent. She remembers this too, the climbing on the rigging, her fingers forging ropes, the shouts of the sailors. A girl on her way to Bravoos became good at climbing along with the waterside rigging. A girl that gave away a coin to pay for passage.

Above her head, a few blinking lights console the blackness. A few leftover clouds drift by.

The barrelman- or barrelwoman, in this case, has big black eyes that stand tightly against her thin face. Her name is Strazza. She is only slightly older than Arya, and she is one of three women in the crew.

_"The ironborn have a Greyjoy woman on their seat to rule them, and she has sailed a whole fleet across the narrow sea and beyond. The North has a Queen as well, why would you make any difference?"_

The argument stands, and no one questions it, as it is when coin is involved. They sail beside women and usher along behind one called Arya Stark, they don't bat an eye as long as everyone does what they need to on the deck and below.

Arya releases a long breath as her boot scrambles inside the crow's nest. It swings more off and about than down on the hull. She stares into the sky again, eyes following a cloud until one of the wanderers appears again. It flies bright and points to the east as well.

"It is quiet and nice here, yes? As long as you don't have to hold watch." The common tongue rolls from the tongue in an accent that slips over certain vowels and accentuates them in a way that pushes the memory of others into Arya Stark's head. If the tone of her skin and the name she carries hadn't already made it clear. This girl is from the free cities, and common is not her easiest mark. Still, her voice sounds like the start of a song, ringing in the way to words spring to life. "Tonight will be a quiet night though, so company is good."

"What do you usually do," Arya asks and makes herself comfortable in the small wooden space next to the girl. "When the night is long?"

A play of words lost on this foreign girl in the tongue they speak in. The long night is over, after all.

"I look up the stars as you just did," Strazza offers. Her eyes shoot a look over back to Arya Stark in her black jacket and the short sword at her belt. Needle sits silently at her side as always, even if it makes climbing harder as it presses against her legs and dangles uncomfortably every time. "And try to remember all their names."

Arya pushes a strand of her hair back behind her ear where it belongs and straightens her back. "I know all their names."

"Is that so?" Strazza smiles, a mouthful of teeth shine in the dim lights from below. A dimple buries in the side of her tanned cheek as she does so. "Let's see. How about the bright one up there?"

"Easy. They call it a wanderer, and it is the one named after the mother."

"That," Strazza answers. "Is perhaps the westerosi answer. It isn't the name people in Bravos have for it."

Arya pulls her mouth into half a smile, one side of her head slightly cocked. Then she repeats the name of the star. This time, it is valyrian, the word rolls off her mouth and gets lost in the sprinkled blue and black sky.

The waves clash below, gently. The barrelwoman is still on her lookout. Then she smiles even wider. Her clavicle peeks out below the rim of her wide, seacrusted shirt. It draws a graceful image on her sunkissed brown skin.

"How about that one?" Arya counters and points at a constellation far away to their northern perimeter.

"Oh." Strazza stares at the graceful lines with the same curiosity that Arya has just watched her clavicle. The stars blink in the form of a beast, prowling and silent. The young woman takes her time, dark eyebrows drawn together. "It is an animal graced with quickness and cunning. Swift. Smooth."

"You don't know the name, do you?" Arya asks.

"I don't know the name in this tongue." She shrugs. Then she says the word in bastard valyrian, and it sounds graceful.

"Shadowcat," Arya translates for her.

"Shadowcat," Strazza repeats. Her short braid swings back like a pendulum. "Yes. It should be your banner, I watched you move. You are swift and fast and graceful. Like a shadowcat."

The breeze blows the hair into Arya's face again and this time she doesn't pull it back as she pulls her head and upper body away from the women. "I'm still a Stark. The banner always has been a Direwolf."

"Direwolf," Strazza repeats, and she draws the vowels out so much the word warps in meaning and gains a new sound. " A big beast. But you're far away from the North. And you're your own. Just like a cat."

 _A cat. A cat._ Cat of the canals drifts into her mind, the name of her mother, the name of a girl in Bravos. Chasing after cats in the streets of King's Landing, long before the war has destroyed it, long before a dragon's flame has burned it apart and the stones fell. Even before she cut her hair and called herself a boy. Even before they executed her father on the steps in front of a leering crowd for being a traitor.

For a while, Arya has no words. She only looks into the sky, the wide berth beyond the horizon that is only home of the moon and the stars at night. Lanterns far beyond, gifting their silvery shine to mortals. They stare into the sea for any trace of possible danger, but it is a mirror of soft saltwater.

"You win," the woman beside her says, as she shifts her weight uncomfortable. "I do not know all the names. Well done, Arya Stark. What is your prize?"

"Play again. Tomorrow," Arya answers and stretches.

"Tomorrow it is. But not up here." Strazza points to the bow of the ship. It is the point that Arya has started the journey as they left King's Landing. "I am off duty. Three in the barrel is too much. And I'll bring a drink."

"Learn the common names until then," Arya dares. She swings her feet over the edge of the crow's nest and starts to climb down. The descend into the darkness. Swift, fast, silent. Like a wolf or cat. Or maybe both.


End file.
